Symposium 2026 | Performance Science for Female Endurance Athletes
Performance Science for Female Endurance Athletes
What does the science say about training in female endurance athletes? Talks will cover bone stress injuries, fueling for performance, wearable studies on injury and the menstrual cycle, and adaptation to heat stress.
CO-MODERATOR
Trent Stellingwerff, PhD, CSEP-CEP, FACSM, ChPC
Trent Stellingwerff is the Director of Research and Development (R&D) at the Women’s Health, Sports & Performance (WHSP) Institute and a Senior Advisor of R&D at the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific. Over the years, he has overseen multidisciplinary health and performance teams, led major R&D initiatives, and supported national Olympic/Paralympic team athletes in track and field, rowing, triathlon, and mountain biking.
CO-MODERATOR
Rachele Pojednic, PhD, FACSM
Rachele Pojednic is a wellness industry executive conducting translational clinical research and science strategy across private and academic sectors. She holds a faculty appointment at Stanford University in the Program in Human Biology and leads industry partnerships at Stanford Lifestyle Medicine and the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance’s FASTR program for female athletes. She received her PhD in nutritional biochemistry and exercise physiology from Tufts University and her research examines nutrition, supplementation, and exercise interventions on muscle physiology, human performance, and longevity, with a particular focus on women’s health.
SPEAKER
Kristin Popp, PhD
Kristin Popp is a research investigator at the HealthPartners Institute TRIA Research and Education Center. Her research focuses on understanding menstrual cycle physiology and bone stress injuries in athletes and military personnel, examining the structural and microarchitectural aspects of bone, while integrating bone metabolism markers and advanced imaging techniques to enhance rehabilitation and long-term bone health.
SPEAKER
Louise Burke, PhD, OAM, FACSM
Louise Burke is Chair of Sports Nutrition at the Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research at Australian Catholic University. She served 30 years as Head of Nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport and on 6 Summer Olympic Games teams. Her collaborations with the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance and the Women’s Health, Sports & Performance Institute have allowed her to increase her focus on work with female athletes across a range of themes of fueling, energy availability, supplements and research methodology.
SPEAKER
Sarah Johnson, PhD
Sarah Johnson is a postdoctoral fellow with the Digital Athlete Moonshot of the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance at Stanford. She is developing new techniques that use wearable data to enhance peak performance in athletes, with a particular interest in hormonal health. Her research encompasses menstrual cycle impacts on cardiovascular models, injury risk associated with menstrual irregularity, and biomechanically informed prediction of bone stress injuries. She is an avid runner and has competed at a national level.
SPEAKER
Christopher Minson, PhD
Christopher Minson has been investigating human adaptation to environmental exposure for over 25 years at the University of Oregon. His research is focused on the benefits of environmental exposures for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, as well as the physiology of athletic performance, particularly in women. He has worked with many professional sports teams, Olympians, and collegiate athletes from around the world to prepare for competition in extreme environments, as well as to leverage environmental exposure to improve performance.
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